Royal Purple / V8TV Royal Sport 69 Camaro Project Update

[907rs]

I was just wondering about this car the other day. Good to see some progress, Kevin. I need to ditch the cable and get the dish!

[V8TV]

Everyone loves pop rivets.... (especially Momma Rivets!)

[zbugger]

That wheel tub looks like a bad kindergarten paper mache project. I look forward to seeing updates again as I don't have the ability to watch the show. I would if I could though. I'm addicted to all things automotive....... It's sad, really.

[V8TV]

The first shot is the car on the Autotwirler immediately post media blasting at Imperial Blasting. They did a fantastic job stripping the car, but the remains weren’t too nice.

The following details show the patched-in floor, the inner rear driver structure we have to reconstruct, and the state of the cowl and front of the rocker panels.

After seeing this, we decided to blow the car apart and make it right…

[Sales@Dutchboys]

Like the Autotwirler ..Were looking at picking one up at Columbus...

-Paul

[lil427z]

the old girl is rough. keep up the cood work.
rick k

[V8TV]

To reconstruct the Camaro’s tub, we had to determine what (if any) of the original structure we were going to reuse. This came down to a couple brackets, inner structures, and the windshield frame. We shot the whole mess in PPG DP-90 Epoxy primer to keep it from rusting…which seems kind of ironic now that I think about it… and then we systematically drilled out every spot weld in the back half of the car to disassemble the tub.

These shots show the passenger quarter panel removed, and then the front half of the car on stands. We have to replace the dash, inner and outer cowl, and side cowl panels, but we’re going to keep the original structure together seeing that it’s already the correct dimensions. Then we’re going to replace each panel individually, creating a new front body section. Then, we’re going to transfer that to the new body structure…

[V8TV]

We used the dimensions from the Fisher Body Service Manual to build a fixture to hold the body shell as we constructed it. We built a table out of 3x3 square tube steel, and then we built adjustable cross bars to hold vertical stands to which we will attach the body. The table references the factory datum line, and the stands hold the body to the original dimensions in relationship to that datum line. The whole fixture was checked for straightness multiple times before we started to assemble the new tub.

[V8TV]

The actual construction of the body shell started with the rear frame rails which we obtained from Classic Industries. We bolted the rails to the corresponding stands on the fixture. Next, we obtained a replacement front floor and firewall from Year One and attached it to the fixture. These were spanned by a Year One full length floor, and then we added the full trunk floor pan. Everything was set and bolted in place for measurements before any welding takes place.

Although the panels come with braces and brackets welded to them, we elected to supplement these with additional spot welds. We used a Blair Rotabroach spot-weld drill to cut the top layer of steel, then plug-welded the pieces together for additional strength.
Once the dimensions were checked, we welded the trunk floor to the rear rails, then the trunk floor to the floor. This is as far as we can go until we mock up the rocker panels, add the cowl section, the doors, and the quarter panels. The rear section of the car is non-adjustable, so we must make sure the door gaps and quarters all fit now before we move on.

The last shots show the new floors spot-welded together. The factory used a giant spot welder which applied tremendous clamping force as well as the welding current to fuse the panels together… we obviously don’t have a GM factory in our shop, so we’re approaching the job differently to achieve similar results. Again, we’re using the Rotabroach spot-weld drill, a hole punching tool, and standard drills to put holes in the panels where they will weld together. Then, we clamp them with Vice-Grips, C-Clamps, and even devices consisting of Porta-Power hydraulics. Once they’re in place, we fill the holes with our HTP MIG 200 MIG welder. The welds and resulting joints are as strong as factory with no seam welding to crack. However, they produce small “mushroom heads” on the welds which need to be dressed. We’re not really going for a perfect concourse restoration, nor are we going for a Rad Rides perfectly smooth structure, so we use 3M Roloc wheels to grind the welds to a semi-factory like dimple. These will be body worked to remove the grinding scratches, but we like the look of the dimple. In our opinion, if it’s too smooth, you wonder how much filler is hiding under there.